Warners Gets Some BONE!!

Merrick here...
Warner Bros. has acquired the movie rights to Jeff Smith's BONE comics. Dan Lin, who is also lording over MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE for the studio, will produce.

The fantasy series followed three cousins from the Bone family who are small, white and bald humanlike creatures with big noses. The trio are run out of their hometown and find themselves in a mysterious valley where they are separated and hunted by other creatures. They are taken in by a girl named Thorn and her grandmother, and find out that the valley is threatened by an evil force called the Lord of the Locusts.

...says THIS ARTICLE in Hollywood Reporter.
The Powers That Be are still mulling whether or not this should be a live action film, or animated.
To be completely honest, I don't know much about BONE other than being aware of its existence. However, you can find out more about it at the official site, which you can access HERE!

Great series! If handled properly it could be the next epic fantasy trilogy. The story chronology would support it as the story grows increasingly darker as it goes on.
I wonder if this development will get telltale games to continue their serial releases of the computer game since they already own the rights.

The comic was made to be animated. This really could be huge. If you read the comic its a perfect mix of children style storytelling and adult humor. I really enjoy it. It was Shrek before Shrek was around. I hope they do this well. I am pretty excited.

and the first way to make sure this is done right is to NOT have it animated in any way! If you are a fan of the comic be satisfied that you have an animated version of this amazing epic. It should be a trilogy. It should be a live action film with all of the fantasy characters as Jim Henson's puppets. Think The Dark Crystal people!

Beowulf style CG would be best for Bone I think, so the merge between real people and all the weird creatures is smooth and the whole thing feels a little more fantastical, but still looks somewhat realistic. I'd be okay with 2D animated too. If they do it Rocky and Bullwinkle style live action I think I might shoot myself.

If Smith is involved I'm guessing it will be animated since that's his background and I'm guessing 2d. That was the plan a few years ago back when Nickelodeon was going to make it a feature film and Smith took a long sabbatical from the book to work on it.

But couldn't get the funding together. So he published the comics in hopes that it would be picked up. All that work has finally paid off. I'm guessing that a CGI film will be the results. Mixing live action and animation would not fit since all the human characters are as cartoony as the Bones.

I've been reading AICN for years, and have always resisted getting a talkback account. But I have to comment on this news here. No one has pointed out yet that the reason the Nick version fell through is that Jeff Smith put a stop to it himself. Nick wanted to include a bunch of pop songs (Britney Spears and the like) on the soundtrack in order to appeal to that audience. Jeff Smith put a stop to that real quick. That right there is the reason why I am not worried about this adaptation. Bone is extremely close to Jeff Smith's heart. He is not looking to sell out and will make sure a faithful adaptation is made. Ofcourse (like most of you have pointed out) this needs to be animated. 2D or CG would both work, and it needs to be a trilogy. They can't pack enough of the story into one movie. As a big fan of this book, and Jeff Smith's work in general, I can't wait.

pleeease don't insult BONE that way! BONE appeals to both kids and adults, but without the relentless pop-cultural throwaways that make Shrek so tiring. Somebody else in the TB had it better when he mentioned Dark Crystal.

CGI is acceptable. Hopefully the success of Beowulf will pave the way for a project like this to come together. By the way, is that Dark Crystal sequel officially dead or what? Anyone know? <p>
Dark Crystal rules!

You can get it at http://www.telltalegames.com/bone/ ... only the first two chapters are released, but I believe they plan on doing the whole series eventually. The music and voice-acting is great in these games -- very appropriate to the series. (These are also the fellows who've rescued Sam & Max, BTW -- including reprinting the fantastic "Surfin' the Highway" collection.)

There is nary an original idea in the entire series as far as I can tell. All of the characters are just archetypes; the whole series could barely provide enough material for one interesting movie. That said, I actually enjoyed reading it a few years ago. It is very "cute"

Live action for everything except humans. they'll be badly made sock puppets. Britney Spears and Lindsey Lohan will provide vocals for the main theme, which will drown out all dialog. Voices will be provided by z list celebritys who couldn't act their way out of a blank expression contest.

foe a long time i thought howie mandel would be good for bone,<P> but a soft spoken child would be good. <P> billy west for phoney, and john dimaggio [bender] doing his alan alda [who was doing a groucho marx impression] impression as smiley, <P> ted the bug, either billy west doing his new yorker voice or danny devito. <P> whoever did eeyor's john wayne style voice on winney the pooh was what dragon sounded like to me. <P> and just for fun, willem dafoe and mark hamill as the stupid, stupid rat creatures.

I know this because I happened to conduct it. We talked for two hours and the transcript must be like 10,000 words long.
I'll be curious to find out if his views about studio execs have changed since then -- because in Part 1, he tells a hilarious and terrifying story about Nickelodeon asking him to put a Britney Spears song in his "Bone" movie. He said no, and they practically threw him off a yacht.
Part 1: http://tinyurl.com/3xvd7y
Part 2: http://tinyurl.com/2kuxob
Part 3: http://tinyurl.com/39ksvp

This guy probably got a deal by relinquishing all creative control. Sometimes I wish Evanier and Sergio were sell outs. I may just be that desperate to see Groo animated which has been attempted since it's conception.

...like Billy West and John DiMaggio, but you just KNOW they'll get BIG NAME CELEBRITIES with boring voices to play the three Bones and Thorn. Honestly, BRAD PITT AS SINBAD?! Anyways, this also needs to be in 2-D, with a minimum of CGI and soft, watercolor backgrounds, but that's never going to happen, either.

I hate it when animated films use well known stars instead of tried and true voice actors. First, it takes me out of the fucking movie. I don't care how well the film is done, I can still tell that's the guy from the Office and it's infecting every fucking scene. Second, if you're popular enough to get a role in a major animated film you probably don't need the work, unlike the talented voice actors you're pushing out of the business. Finally, you're not good at what you're doing. Voice actors actually know how to work within animated films. They don't just drop in for the fucking paycheck. Voice actors improve the film, instead of detract from it. Okay, that's my rant.

Dark Crystal didn't suck, little man, you're just too small to appreciate its ambition. You can argue a point without making such stupid comments.<p>At the end of the day, I can't think of any CG animated work that really needs to exist. Pixar's stuff isn't really aging well for me. Work that reveals nothing of the creator's hand is lifeless.<p>I'll take Dark Crystal, Neverending Story, Legend, and Bakshi's LOTR over Xbox crap like Beowulf and 300 any day.

Far more inventive and imaginative than most fantasy fare. Since LotR the only fantasy film that managed to capture imagination and whimsy was Stardust. All the imitators pretty much sucked. <p>
Dark Cystal fuckin' rules!

and it would be a sweet film. But making it live with 3D Boneses would be more amazing, and give this film the power it deserves. Think of a fantasy Roger Rabbit. And the Boneses are from another 'world' so this tretment would make sense.

it would probably remain slightly distracting having animated Boneses in a live-action environment. Better keep it all 2D, but make it visually rich.. not just flat colours.... aaah.. i can see why they're having trouble deciding. Best thing to do is make some 2 minute test films. 1) 2D. 3)all live-action. 4)the same live-action but with animated elements

Don't get me wrong, there are many famous celeb voiceovers I love (James Woods was hilarious as Hades in Hercules), but I share the weariness of genuine voiceover professionals like West, DiMaggio, Tress MacNeillie, ect., over how they're getting crowded out of their own field. Like West said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly a few years back, "I can voice four major characers on Futurama, but I'd be lucky to voice background fish #37 in Finding Nemo".

I can't wait for the bone movie so I can come here and read the words "best comic book adaptation ever" 100 times while the other half of you talk about how boring and formulaic it is and how you hate the voice actors and then I get to read your top 5 alternate casts and about how if the movie had been in your hands it would have been so much better even though you have yet to ever do anything remotely creative ever in your own very real and sad life, like me.

...inauthentic. They have a patter and style down that sounds like voice over work. Your right though, that generally speaking, I'd take them over most of the celebs who get thrown into the mix just because. But the odd celeb, like Eddie Murphy (no, seriously) does much better work with a character than most voice over guys.

it usually sounds like the persona of that actor, not a different animated character. On the one hand this is probably because the studio is paying for a recognizable name/voice. Sure, some go out of their way to actually act, but most don't understand voice over work. Osmosis Jones already mentioned West, who does a superb job with multiple characters on Futurama. He is able to do multiple characters because voice acting is his profession and he understands it more fully than someone like Wanda Sikes, or whatever c-list celebrity they choose to dump into their latest animated feature.

Helena Bonham Carter and Ralph Fiennes in the Wallace & Gromit movie. They both actually did VOICES, they didn't just lazilly speak in their normal cadences. Also see Kate Winslet and Hugh Jackman in Flushed Away. On the other end of the spectrum is the aformentioned Brad Pitt in Sinbad (BRAD PITT!) and the entire cast of Shark Tale, who not only didn't bother to alter their usual speaking voices one iota, but this was also increased tenfold by having each character be a slavish, grotesque caricature of each actor. What 10-year-old kid gives a shit if an animated movie features the voices of Martin Scorsese or Robert De Niro? Would Spongebob Squarepants be more popular if Spongebob were voiced by Robin Williams? How about Futurama's Fry voiced by Steve Carrell? Horton Hears A Who LOOKS like it captures the visual spirit of Dr. Seuss, but hearing Jim Carrey and Carrell's voices just dragged me out of the trailer big time. What about the VERY quirky, contemporary-sounding Jeff Goldblum and Sandra Bullock in the otherwise somber Prince Of Egypt? I saw that at the theater with my brother, and at one point he leaned over and whispered "Dude, that's TOTALLY Jeff Goldblum!" At that point, you're not even engrossed in the story, you're just visualizing the celeb-crammed cast in a recording booth. Remeber the Sinbad trailers, how they seemed to feature more footage of Pitt, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michelle Pfieffer recording their lines than any of the film's exciting action sequences? At least Pixar chooses offbeat, little-known or unfairly forgotten celebs like Patton Oswalt and Craig T. Nelson for their films. Imagine The Incredibles with Harrison "Monotone" Ford or George Clooney as Mr. Incredible.

As was said above. This needs 2D animation. If they do that, cast the voices well, and treat the material with respect, then this will be fantastic.
Merrick. Get a copy of this and read it through. It's well worth it.

Scholastic has printed several original Bone TPBs geared at the young ones. Here's to hoping they don't adapt those and stick with the more adult stories. Someone did mention Shrek somewhere up there ^ which is likely the tone the movie will end up with.

Dark Crystal was incredible.
You however are a shit fisting waste of DNA. And for the record, there isn't, nor ever has been a "collective intelligence" in any of the talkbacks, fuckstick.
To your point, the movie should be animated.

Please, how about another sentence about how big their humanoid noses are? BONE is nothing less than Disney Comics meets Lord of the Rings and has long been anticipated as the second-coming of 2D animation. A 3D option should only be considered among studio executives and simple-minded adults.